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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25023805">Not a Single Note</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/notoneforreality/pseuds/notoneforreality'>notoneforreality</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>QB-B3 007 Fest 2020 [13]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>James Bond (Craig movies)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>007 Fest, 007 Fest 2020, 5+1 Things, Angst with a Happy Ending, Found Family, Gen, James Bond is Lonely, Loneliness, Prompt Fill, Songs, Team Q Branch, a study, but I kind of fudged the format, but it's music day and they set the tone, the gang's all here, this fic comes with a playlist, until he's not, you don't have to listen to them</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-20 07:36:04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,052</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25023805</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/notoneforreality/pseuds/notoneforreality</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>James Bond is a lonely child. He grows up to be a lonely man.</p><p>Luckily, there are some people who want to help fix that.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>QB-B3 007 Fest 2020 [13]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1795726</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>53</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Not a Single Note</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Written for--<br/>13th July: Music Monday;<br/>This prompt from the 2020 anon list: 5 times James felt incredibly alone + 1 time he realised he actually is surrounded by people who love and cherish him - yes, even when he's being a bastard<br/><a href="https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5rR4bkWjvWDAnrtMBO7try?si=dwhcn20JR0WlgnlXBL7dgg">Not a Single Note playlist on Spotify</a></p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <b>-5. Welly Boots by The Amazing Devil</b>
</p><p>
  <span>James is eleven when Kincade arrives at the school in Koblenz to tell him that his parents have died on their climbing trip. James doesn’t cry, not then. Nor at the funeral, a week later.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Three weeks later, when Kincade has gone to get supplies, James stands in the middle of his parents’s bedroom. The whole thing is still laid out perfectly, like they’ll be home from their climbing holiday any time soon, ready to slip in under the blue-grey duvet and read until they fall asleep.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>With a yell, James launches himself at the bed and rips it apart, dragging the duvet onto the floor, hurling the pillows and throw cushions across the room, tearing the white sheets from the mattress. He knocks the alarm clock from his father’s nightstand, shoves the history book off his mother’s and resolutely does not care when it lands face down and open, the pages crumpling inside. He even yanks the curtains off, and only just avoids bringing the rail down on his head.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Then, when the room is a wreck and he can’t stand to be inside any longer, he sprints all the way through the house, leaping down the stairs and barrelling through the kitchen, out into the grounds. It’s raining, because it’s February in Scotland, but he doesn’t care, doesn’t care for the creeping cold of the rain or the chill of the wind.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He stands there, in the cold and the wet, the only person for miles, and screams.</span>
</p>
<hr/><p>
  <b>-4. What You Know by Two Door Cinema Club</b>
</p><p>
  <span>On a Saturday afternoon, a month before James is due to graduate from Fettes, he stares up at the ceiling above his bed. A girl from town lies across his torso, the both of them naked with only a sheet pulled up over them, just in case James’ roommate comes back early.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s a stupid thing to do, but James isn’t the only one to do it, although he might be one of those who do it most, pick up a girl in town and sneak her into the dorms for some fun. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It kills the time, it’s more interesting than prepwork, and it’s human contact beyond fighting in the corridors or scrumming on the rugby pitch. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>For all James likes to march around like he doesn’t need anything or anyone, he misses human contact. He’s not sure he knows what it feels like without an ulterior motive, anymore.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His smile is grim, with no amusement. He’s seventeen and already philosophising about human contact and affection. It’s only downhill from here, right?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You alright, babe?” the girl — James thinks her name is Moira — asks, without looking up. She traces a finger around James’ collarbone, and he wraps his hand further over her back.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He hums rather than give an answer, because she’s not looking for an answer. Also because he thinks the answer is ‘no’.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But then she slides up to press her mouth to his, and he tries to forget about how much he still feels alone.</span>
</p>
<hr/><p>
  <b>-3. Soldier by Fleurie</b>
</p><p>
  <span>In the Navy, James is assigned to the HMS Turbulent. He gets along well enough with his crewmates, has lost a little of the solitary, aloof demeanour he’d worn like something part armour, part safety blanket throughout his time at Fettes. There’s a group he tentatively calls friends, whom he sits with at mess and spends time with when they’re not on active duty.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>For the most part, James likes them. Jackson and Harris are a comedy duo; Rogers is smart and determined, and Loggins is the leader of the gang. He does his best to keep James involved, a scheme about which James has mixed feelings.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He trusts these men, and the rest of the crew on the sub, with his life. They’re a good bunch of people, well trained and loyal, and he’d die for them as soon as they’d die for him, if it ever become necessary (a distinct possibility, working in the armed forces). Still, he’s not sure he trust them with himself.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He’s not sure he trusts himself with himself. He doesn’t quite know who he is.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He does know that he’s bored, down here. There’s no challenge to his duties, no difficulties to overcome, no reason to celebrate any of his achievements.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>James watches Rogers heap an extra serving onto his tray, declaring that he deserves it after finally managing to fix an issue he’s been working on all week, and wonders if he’s the only one on the ship who feels like this.</span>
</p>
<hr/><p>
  <b>-2. Good Grief by Bastille</b>
</p><p>
  <span>James shoots Mr White and drags him back to MI6, and then he washes his hands of the whole situation. He doesn’t stick around for the interrogation, instead choosing to find the nearest pub and get drunk out of his mind.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The landlord kicks him out at closing time (midnight; it’s a Monday) and Bond has enough training at this point to stumble back to his house through the rain, although he doesn’t make it any further than crumpled up at the foot of his stairs.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>That’s where he wakes the next afternoon: hunched over the bottom step, with his suit jacket still damp and pulling awkwardly across his back. His muscles ache, as does his chest, and he drags a hand over his face, the movement savage.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He hasn’t cried in a long time, but there are tacky tracks down his cheeks, and his eyelids feel sticky, his head wollen in the sort of way that it hasn’t been since he was a boy. </span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>The job’s done and the bitch is dead.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>There had been a moment, just before the end, when he’d thought they could make it, thought he could walk away from life in the service and make a life with the beautiful woman who seemed to love him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>M says she made the deal for him. The aching, bitter core buried in the centre of James’ ribcage refuses the justification.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He’d thought he had a chance at life, and now he’s back in an empty house.</span>
</p>
<hr/><p>
  <b>-1. Broken Crown by Mumford and Sons</b>
</p><p>
  <span>Double-oh Seven implies the existence of a previous six Double-ohs. There are a previous six Double-ohs, as well as a further six after James. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Double-oh Seven flies out to the continent alone, spends a week in three different hotel beds, two of which don’t belong to him, and flies back to the UK alone.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He does it so many times.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>M tells him to be careful. He tells her he knows what he’s doing, and promptly goes off grid for two straight weeks, resurfacing somewhere in the south of France with three cracked ribs and a broken arm.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>One of the women he beds tells him she forgives him and he storms out of the room, inexplicably and unreasonably furious. The next morning he kills two men and shoots another and goes back to MI6 with hands dirty with all the work the government would never admit it lowers itself to.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He comes back because he has nowhere else to go, a chained lion at the circus, released to turn tricks for profit, and the caught and caged once again. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>M dies. Olivia Mansfield dies in his arms, and he can do nothing to save her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They are in the grounds, just beyond the tunnel out of Skyfall Lodge, so close to James’ childhood.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He stares up at the same rainclouds that hung overhead all those decades ago and roars.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His face is wet. He says it’s the rain, and not the loss of the last person he had left.</span>
</p>
<hr/>
<hr/><p>
  <em>
    <b>(0. You’ve Got a Friend by James Taylor</b>
  </em>
</p>
<hr/><p>
  <em>i.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Double-oh Seven is sent to the Ukraine with Double-oh Six and everything goes sideways immediately. They lose contact with Six, lose most of their weapons, lose sight of each other. The blizzard had come out of nowhere, and it hadn’t taken long for them to get separated.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>James pushes doggedly on. His ankle is badly sprained, if not broken, the chill is biting at his face, and he doesn’t even know if he’s going the right way. </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“Alec!” he screams against the howl of the wind.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Then, out of the blank, bleak whiteness, Alec’s face appears.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“C’mon Jamie,” he says.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<hr/><p>
  <em>ii.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Being at the bar tonight isn’t even James’ choice, but his mark is at the other end of the room with three women draped over him, and James watches through the mirror on the back wall.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>There isn’t much he can do, with his gun long gone, and no back-up.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“Moneypenny,” James says, not expecting much. The other end of his comms unit has been dead for a while now.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>A tap on his shoulder makes him whirl around, and he slouches back against the bar when he sees who’s grinning at him.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“Mr Bond, what a surprise,” says Moneypenny.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<hr/><p>
  <em>
    <span>iii. </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>The mission would have been a write-off, if James hadn’t pulled off one of his last minute escapes with the stolen plans, seconds before the building had exploded and sent him flying face first into a silver Range Rover.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Medical leave has never suited James, however, and he takes to prowling the corridors of Vauxhall Cross and scaring junior agents for fun.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>When he loses interest in that, he stalks to the management offices.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“Tanner,” he says, barging into the Chief of Staff’s office.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Tanner looks up, amusement and sympathy on his face.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“How can I help you, Agent Bond?”</span>
  </em>
</p>
<hr/><p>
  <em>iv.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>On bad days, James haunts the gun range. The Q-Branch minions testing weapons and the other Double-oh Agents testing themselves give him space.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Today, a year after Skyfall, all it does is give him space to miss every damn shot in the cartridge and then punch a wall, leaving him hunched over with bloodied knuckles.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“M,” he says, quiet and mournful.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>When he looks up, Mallory is stood a few feet away with a towel and an icepack. </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Bond considers him, and slowly stands.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“M,” he says, and means the man stood in front of him.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Mallory almost smiles. “Bond.”</span>
  </em>
</p>
<hr/><p>
  <em>v.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>After approximately seventy-three hours, James breaks out from a cave in the middle of the Pamirs and makes it down the mountain to a town, stumbling into the first place that looks like it might have half a wifi connection.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>He finds a woman with a computer and begs use of it, borrowing her headphones, too, and getting onto the internet, circling a few pages and waiting for something to happen.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“Come on, Q,” he says under his breath, tired and wanting to get home.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>A link flashes and James clicks through it, sagging with relief.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“James!” Q says, joyful.</span>
  </em>
  <em>
    <span>)</span>
  </em>
</p>
<hr/>
<hr/><p>
  <b>1. This is Where I Belong by The Kinks</b>
</p><p>
  <span>They’re at a pub, loud and noisy and apparently Tanner’s local where he flirts with the bartender, much to the amusement of both their wives. Alec is with him, in charge of controlling the fliting and actually getting a round in. Over by the pool tables, Q is trying to sucker Moneypenny into a game but she won’t give, just laughs and tells him to play by himself or find another idiot to challenge him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He looks over to the corner booth, immediately, and Mallory raises his hands in surrender.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m not fool enough to try,” he says, and Q makes puppy eyes at James.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Come on, James,” he says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah come on, James,” Moneypenny echoes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Go on, James,” Mallory says, and he’s grinning.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Alec and Tanner return with a handful of drinks each, just in time.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Go on, James,” Tanner says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Go on, Jamie,” Alec says, and then, in a stage whisper: “What are we telling him to do?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>James looks around at all of them, all grinning and bright and relaxed, no catastrophic event hanging over the country that any one of them has only two days or so to fix. A smile spreads over his face, and a warm, contended feeling settles in his chest, and he laughs.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well, if you’re all going to gang up on me…,” he says, but he’s laughing, because they are a gang, but he’s just as much a part of it as they are, and they all want him here.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Together.</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Keep notes:<br/>--absolutely do not care how cheesy and obvious the last couple of songs are<br/>--"all you have to do is call, and I'll be there, yeah yeah yeah, you got a friend"<br/>--okay so I kinda fudged the prompt a little but it was cute okay<br/>--six short scenes of 250 words, and fice short intermission scenes of 100 words. exactly. actually not as hard as I thought it would be but still not easy.<br/>--this is the only way I'm going to get anything of a reasonably short length finished ever<br/>--The Amazing Devil is amazing pls go listen I adore them</p></blockquote></div></div>
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